A prophet for me...

This is a prediction I can buy into.

“Prosperity spreads, technology progresses, poverty declines, disease retreats, fecundity falls, happiness increases, violence atrophies, freedom grows, knowledge flourishes, the environment improves and wilderness expands.”
If you’re not ready to trust an optimist, if you still fear a reckoning is at hand, you might consider the words of Thomas B. Macaulay, a British poet, historian and politician who criticized doomsayers of the mid-1800s.
“We cannot absolutely prove,” he wrote, “that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us, and with just as much apparent reason.” [More]

While much of what is mentioned above seems logical to me, the core of my optimism is based on having a growing number of brains working on the solutions to our always-numerous problems, instead of a few million in the West. I think we will see an outpouring of innovation in a wide scope of human endeavor simply because more people have more information - and information inevitably leads to freedom.

Also, after listening to too lectures about the Middle Ages - which were badly mislabeled "Dark" - I realize progress continued albeit fitfully even then.  Humanity was largely held back by religious orthodoxy and plague, from which we bounced back with surprising power.

I see little facing us that is beyond a conceivable human solution.